The Lost Beacon - A cache celebrating 20 years of geocaching in 2020 West Ulverstone, Tasmania, Australia
By 2y'stassies on 27-Sep-20. Waypoint GA18152

Cache Details

Difficulty:
Terrain:
Type:	Beacon
Container:	Small
Coordinates:	S41° 8.840' E146° 10.119' (WGS 84)
	55G 430237E 5444554N (UTM)
Elevation:	0 m
Local Government Area:	Central Coast

Map

Whodunit Terrain

Description

The Paddle Steamer Shannon was built in Goolwa South Australia in 1877. After working the Murray River and Lake Alexandrina for many years, it was purchased and brought to Tasmania in 1905 to operate on the Tamar River. The passage across Bass Strait from Melbourne to the Tamar River was difficult, taking 15 days. Very quickly it was realised that the berthing facilities on the Tamar River could not accommodate a paddle boat and within a year, it was decided to return the ship to Goolwa.

There is a little known piece of history associated with the final journey of the PS Shannon. After leaving the Tamar in September 1906, the Shannon hugged the north coast as it made its way to Stanley to refuel before starting the treacherous Bass Strait crossing. Bad weather forced it to seek shelter in the Leven River. Locals hurriedly constructed a beacon to help guide Shannon in and out of the river.

After sheltering overnight the Shannon continued her voyage to Stanley to refuel. The Shannon left Stanley bound for Melbourne but was hit by a fierce storm off the west coast of King Island. Leaks started to open up in the hull. To save the lives of the crew, the skipper ran her aground on the beach at the mouth of Yellow Rock River where the remains of her boiler and drive shaft lie, visible in the sand today.

While visiting the maritime section of the Currie Museum recently, Mrs y'stassie made a surprise discovery - the location of the beacon that had guided the Shannon into and out of the Leven River. Whilst the old beacon has long gone, a modern day beacon (a Chirp) has been placed at this spot. You will need to locate this beacon in order to get the coordinates for the cache commemorating the passage of the Shannon 114 years ago. The beacon is not located at the published coordinates but all the information you need to locate the beacon is included in this cache description.

Good luck as you commence your hunt for The Lost Beacon.

Hints

* Vg vf n Q4 pnpur. * Gur pnpur vf ybpngrq ng gur onfr bs gerr haqre yvggre.

ROT 13:	ABCDEFGHIJKLM
	NOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Decode

Logs

18-Apr-21

Budgietas

Another Sunday trip to the Northwest coast to grab GCA caches with Oldsaint. Certainly, a day that I kept Oldsaint moving the whole day as he collected 50 GCA caches during the day. Personally, I think I found slightly more, including a couple of puzzles that I had solved but not collected.

The trip started at a leisurely 6.30 am and while going over the highland route we started our first of three major GCA trails at 10.30. The trip over the highlands was worth the detour, with a First to find at the "Bridge over Ouse" and a WhereIgo that I had solved for the central highlands a long time ago. The three main runs we took on today, were the "Challenging" Sailboat Geoart, the "tricky" F Fairway and the "very clever" Lighting bolt caches. I have to say that the lighting bolt caches had a cache design I had never seen before, so was an absolute highlight.

Thank you for placing these caches for our enjoyment

17-Apr-21

Trimbletas

After finding the Geoart series we traveled around the area picking up caches we have either both done or I needed to grab. This is one of them. Worked out a while ago with a bit of help. TFTC Clan Cerberus

Rated: for Overall Experience

27-Dec-20

Tassie Trekkers

Found this cache whilst out and about caching with whitewebbs.

Many thanks 2y'stassies for the challenge and placing this beacon and celebrating 20 years of geocaching.

Rated: for Overall Experience

27-Dec-20

whitewebbs

While do a caching run on the North West coast with Tassie Trekkers we stopped to do this well constructed puzzle chirp and others in this lovely reserve. Having solved the puzzle part when it was first published it was great to finally get the smiley. A fitting tribute to twenty years of caching. TFTC

Rated: for Overall Experience

11-Nov-20

sirius Tas

Hi 2y'stassies....been busy of late so haven't looked at puzzles much.
Wasn't sure of correct method initially but soon found my way around after reading and studying the GC puzzle notes that were kindly provided by CO.
Quite warm this morning...headed to the signal and soon had the cache coordinates.
Accurate coords led to a quick find.
Thoroughly enjoyed working through the puzzle and learning more solving skills.
Many thanks for the puzzle and cache....most appreciated...cheers st.

Rated: for Overall Experience

16-Oct-20

OldSaint

Sainted at 1047 hours

Rated: for Overall Experience

02-Oct-20

stainless-steel-rat

I solved this one the night it came out as i recognised something in the puzzle and had the finals in no time.
Today having driven the long way round to get here we were surprised to still get the FTF and by the looks of it we only just beat the other hardcore cachers.

Thanks for the interesting cache, it's the first time i've had chance to use the chirp feature on my new phone and was pleased that it worked without issue.

Rated: for Overall Experience

02-Oct-20

DEZ055

After trying different methods to crack this one we finally come up with one that worked. After going to goat island to retry finding the multi we headed around this way to gather the chirp.
Headed up the track where our gps connected straight away.
With the information we headed to ground zero to locate the cache.
After a scratch around the tree we located the cache and signed the log. TFTC Clan Cerberus

Rated: for Overall Experience

02-Oct-20

sharnie's tribe

What better way to use a public holiday than to solve a couple of puzzles and then go out and find them. I'd looked at this one a couple of times without luck and then decided to use a strategy that had worked with another cache to see if it'd work with this one as well. After a couple of twists and turns we had coordinates that worked, now to see if the chirp would load. A couple of tries at that and we finally had our coordinates. When we got to ground zero a relatively quick find was made by mr sharnie's tribe with his trusty stick. Thank you for the cache and the challenge

02-Oct-20

gooseandegg

We had solved the first part when this came out but had to wait a couple of days before waking the chirp. We grabbed the finals from the chirp location but continued on to do another 6 or so caches before heading off to GZ. I'm surprised we didn't see anyone of the other teams as we did another couple of caches nearby.
FTF with stainless Steel rat at 12.03pm. Thanks 2y'stassies for an interesting cache hunt.

Rated: for Overall Experience

27-Sep-20

2y'stassies

Beacon firing and cache ready to be found